Eastern Jin Dynasty: My powerful father

Chapter 408: Dispatching Troops to Hedong (VI)

Sizhou, Henan County, Luoyang.

Murong Jun sent 150,000 troops to station in Henei. Although Luoyang was not his target, it was only separated from Henei County by a river. Huan Huo, who was guarding Luoyang, had already sensed the danger.

He quickly moved all the people around Luoyang to Yingchuan and Xiangcheng counties, leaving only the residents in the city to help defend the city.

In order to avoid the same predicament as Zhang Yu, he could only sit in the city and watch the Yan army plunder the area around Luoyang.

Huan Huo never thought of deploying defenses along the river. He had only 30,000 soldiers under his command, all of whom were followers of Zhou Cheng and Lu Hu who were recruited by Huan Wen. How could he possibly stop the Yan army from crossing the river? It would be better for him to just hold on.

Huan Huo certainly knew that Murong Jun's target was Hedong County, and he went to so much trouble just to prevent Murong Jun from going south.

Although Luoyang is a basin with checkpoints blocking the roads on the east, south and west sides, there is only the Yellow River in the north, which is not enough to be called a natural barrier.

Since it was impossible to defend the Yellow River defense line against the Yan army, he simply tried every means to prevent the Yan people from thinking of crossing the river.

He relocated all the surrounding population, leaving only the soldiers and civilians of Luoyang to guard an isolated city. The city had sufficient food and grass, and the Yan people saw that there was no profit to be made, so they naturally would not go to the trouble of crossing the river to besiege the city.

After all, the purpose of Murong Jun's battle was to drive Huan Xi out of Hedong, not to seize Luoyang, so how could he not distinguish the primary from the secondary?

Luoyang is more of a political value to the Huan family, while Hedong County can bring huge economic benefits to Huan Xi.

Huan Huo relocated the people, but he did not fortify the city and clear the fields; he even left the young crops in the fields.

If Murong Jun simply sent troops south to burn the crops.

With fewer people, Huan Huo could go out of the city to fight.

If too many soldiers were sent, since the people outside the city had been relocated and there would be no people to be captured, going to great lengths just to destroy the young crops outside the city would be like using a butcher knife to kill a chicken. Not only would no benefit be gained, it would also delay the military operations of the Yan army in Hedong County. A wise person would not do that.

Huan Huo and General Mao Muzhi came to the Beimang Mountain and looked at the Yellow River in the distance.

Although local governments had already followed Huan Huo's instructions and relocated the local people in advance, Huan Huo was still not happy. He smiled bitterly and said to Mao Mu:
"After this incident, people in the world may think that Huan is as afraid of the enemy as a tiger."

It is certainly not an easy task to talk without any pain in the waist. This time Murong Jun sent out 150,000 troops, almost mobilizing the whole country's strength. He did not face the army of Yan State directly, so naturally he could not feel the suffocating feeling of oppression.

Huan Huo believed that if he had enough troops, only 100,000 soldiers would be enough, and he would dare to go out of the city to fight Murong Jun, instead of relocating the people under his rule and hiding in Luoyang City like a turtle.

Mao Muzhi heard this and said comfortingly:
"Last year, when Fu Jian invaded Hetao, the Duke of Dunhuang (Xie Ai) also moved women and children to Gaopingchuan in advance. Who can ridicule him?"

However, his consolation did not work, Huan Huo shook his head and said:
"How can the two be compared? At that time, Fu Jian's army was heading for Yinchuan, but today, everyone knows that Murong Jun's intention was to attack Hedong, not Luoyang.

"I'm afraid that outsiders will talk about Xi'er fighting with Fu Jian and Murong Jun in Hedong. I'm a monkey sitting on the mountain watching the fight between tigers. I'm frightened before the battle even starts."

As he spoke, Huan Huo could not help but let out a long sigh, the depression in his heart unable to be relieved for a while.

Although he was jealous of Wang Meng and had slandered him to his brother Huan Wen, Huan Huo was by no means a good-for-nothing. He also had great ambitions and wanted to achieve great things.

Because of this, in the original time and space, in order to respond to the nursery rhyme "Who says you are strong? Break the stone!", he added the word "stone" to the names of Huan Qian and others, encouraging them to fight bravely and resist the Former Qin.

If he was a coward, Huan Huo would not have dared to change his sons' names when the Qin Dynasty was strong in another time and space. Mao Muzhi wanted to laugh but didn't dare to, so he had to hold it back.

If the upper beam is crooked, the lower beams will be crooked too. Huan Wen was not a decent person, and he even led Huan Huo astray.

As for Huan Xi, this is his nature. He was not a very serious person before he traveled through time. In this era, with Huan Wen as a cover, Huan Xi can let himself go without any restraint.

Huan Huo was stationed in Luoyang. Apart from encouraging production, he also did something else. He developed an intelligence network for Chu in the states of Yan and Yu.

Intelligence is something that is best verified by each other. Therefore, the State of Chu cannot rely solely on Huan Xi's spies in the States of Yan and Yu, but must also contribute its own efforts.

At this time, Huan Huo was already aware of the military forces mobilized by Yan and Yu for this battle. Among them, Yu had 100,000 troops, Yan had 150,000 troops, and Huan Xi would also deploy 150,000 troops in Hedong.

This made Huan Huo dumbfounded by the strength of the troops involved in the three-way battle.

When Huan Wen attacked Shu, he only brought 10,000 soldiers.

After years of accumulation, when Huan Wen led his troops to the north to fight, he only dispatched 50,000 infantry and cavalry.

Now, there are 350,000 troops about to fight in Hedong County, and this is not even the entire military force of Huan Xi and Murong Jun.

Murong Jun left a considerable army to garrison the Central Plains to prevent Huan Wen from taking advantage of the opportunity to send troops to take over the three states of Xu, Yan and Qing.

As for Huan Xi, if he gritted his teeth, he could even recruit another 100,000 Hu people from Hexi and Hetao to march east.

Of course, according to Huan Xi's original plan, he only planned to recruit 50,000 Hu people to participate in the war. After all, whether it was rushing from Liangzhou to Hedong, or from the Hetao area via Guanzhong to Bingzhou, the journey was too long. If too many soldiers were recruited, the finances could not afford it.

Wang Meng believed that they should not fall into too great a disadvantage in military strength, so he persuaded Huan Xi to add another 50,000 soldiers. Now there are 130,000 soldiers marching eastward to join the 20,000 soldiers stationed in Hedong County.

Wang Meng once promised Huan Xi that he would take action to solve the financial problem. In fact, he did not break his promise. After Huan Xi left Chang'an, Wang Meng rested at home for two days and then began to increase revenue and reduce expenditure.

The so-called austerity naturally means reducing government expenditures, but no matter how much you save, you cannot save as much as the food and drink expenses of 50,000 troops after they march east. The key lies in increasing revenue.

Once Wang Meng makes up his mind to do something, no one can stop him. Murong Chui, who lost his beloved son Murong Ling in the original time and space, has a deep understanding of this.

After Huan Xi left, Wang Meng took charge of the military and political affairs of Guanxi. In order to completely ban the private salt trade, he actually issued a decree declaring the same crime for buying and selling salt.

Huan Xi had previously stipulated that anyone who sold contraband salt would be punished with death. Now that both buying and selling were treated as the same crime, even those who bought and sold contraband salt would be killed.

As for distinguishing whether it is private salt, it is actually simple. Every place has a trade zone designated by the government. In the trade zone there are shops selling official salt, and local governments will also organize teams to go to the countryside to sell salt.

As soon as Wang Meng issued this decree, public opinion was in an uproar, and countless people accused him of being cruel and inhumane, but Wang Meng remained unmoved.

Because Huan Xi adopted the strategy of small profits but quick turnover in terms of salt, the people could fully afford the official salt.

Unless Wang Meng set the price of official salt extremely high and restricted the people to buy only official salt, forcing them to take risks, he should be criticized by the public.

(End of this chapter)